External and Internal Triggers - PART 1

🧶 Tags:: #literature_Notes
🗃 Resources:: Hooked (2014)
2024-10-27 - 21:02

Trigger A trigger is the actuator of behavior — the spark plug in the engine. Triggers come in two types: external and internal.

Habit-forming products start by alerting users with external triggers like an email, a website link, or the app icon on a phone.

For example, suppose Barbra, a young woman in Pennsylvania, happens to see a photo in her Facebook newsfeed taken by a family member from a rural part of the state. It’s a lovely picture and since she is planning a trip there with her brother Johnny, the external trigger’s call-to-action intrigues her and she clicks.

By cycling through successive hooks, users begin to form associations with internal triggers, which attach to existing behaviors and emotions. When users start to automatically cue their next behavior, the new habit becomes part of their everyday routine.

Over time, Barbra associates Facebook with her need for social connection.